An Above Average Horror Movie

In 1815, the curious monk Tomas Alcala (Greg Serano) releases two evil
female succubi called Munkar (Mary Mara) and Nakir (Rebecca Harrell) from a
prison with the shape of a sculptured ball. The demons kill his brother
eating his arm and escapes to the Twenty-First Century using a weird device
stored in the monastery. Tomas is marked on his hand by a dagger, and the
priests understand that, in accordance with God's wish, this would mean that
he would be a saint and should travel in time to destroy the succubi, using
the dagger as a kind of compass to direct him towards the demons. In the
present days, he is helped by detective Rachel Dressler (Gina Ravera), who
is grieving the loss of her father and believes on his words. Meanwhile, the
two evil demons are feeding themselves of blood of human beings and fighting
against Tomas and Rachel. I have just seen this movie on cable television
and certainly it is above average. It has a reasonable screenplay and good
special effects. The cast is not bad, but something is missing to be a good
or excellent movie. Maybe with a better lead actor, and some more fun in the
scenes of the two succubi might improve the story. Anyway, I am a great fan
of horror movies and I found `Saint Sinner' a worthwhile entertainment,
specially considering that it is made for TV. I do not know why most of the
present horror movies uses the expression `God's Plan'. As far as I know,
the Catholic Church does not have this cliché, but it is used in many
stories to designate what God expects from a character or situation. Does
God have a plan for the humankind? I find this expression not appropriated,
but maybe it is my misunderstanding of language or lack of knowledge of
religion. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): `O Santo Pecador' (`The Saint Sinner')

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

Barker delivers an enjoyable erotic horror flick.

Judged against the majority of Clive Barker adaptations, this one ranks
as one of the better; not as good as 'Lord of Illusions', 'Hellraiser',
or 'Midnight Meat Train', but far more enjoyable than the dismal
Candyman/Hellraiser sequels, about on par with 'Night Breed', 'Book of
Blood', or the original 'Candyman'.

In 1815, a curious monk accidentally unleashes a pair of lethally
seductive succubi, who swiftly kill his brother and then flee through
time. Wishing to atone for his sins, the monk follows the pair to the
20th century where he must slaw them with a magical dagger. He is
arrested after arriving too late to one of their murder scenes and is
forced to try to convince a female cop with no religion to believe him.

Produced for the SciFi channel (or now SyFy, how dorky), the movie has
some of the problems connected with made for TV flicks; that is a few
tacky sets, less-than-stunning visual effects, and some cheesy lines of
dialogue.

On the plus side, the film has an excellent color pallet and a good
sense of mood lighting. The lead protagonists (the monk and the cop)
are a likable pair of heroes and the succubi sisters manage to be both
desirable and repulsive in just about equal proportions.

As mentioned, this was intended for cable broadcast, so the movie has
to conform to TV standards of content; meaning no nudity or graphic
violence. That being said, the film is surprisingly sticky (even
without excess blood, there are a couple noteworthy gross-out scenes)
and there is a fair amount of sexual content. On a side not, the DVD
has a couple of unrated scenes in the special features which contain
some nudity for those that absolutely can't do without it.

Imperfect, yet still satisfying; worth a look.

7/10

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

Mildly Entertaining Made-For-TV Horror From A Clive Barker Story...

SAINT SINNER is pretty much what I would have expected from a Sci-Fi
Channel made-for-TV Clive Barker story - it was entertaining enough,
but lacked all the elements that could have made it something
noteworthy. Pretty much mindless "fun" with no substance - I knew not
to get my hopes up just because Barker's name was attached to it, and
it's a good thing I didn't...

A monk unwittingly unleashes a pair of succubi who use a time-machine
to travel from 1815 to "modern times". Once here, they go around
feeding on unsuspecting males and causing general havoc. The reluctant
monk uses the time-machine to track the two and with the help of a
blessed dagger, hopes to end their killing-spree...

The main problem with SAINT SINNER, is that it's a made-for-TV film,
which means no nudity, no real gore, none of the "good stuff" that
could have made this better. The acting was OK if a bit goofy,
especially from the succubi-sisters - but I wasn't expecting
Oscar-worthy performances. The "action" comes pretty quick, so I was
never really bored - but the whole show was pretty predictable and
straight-forward, with no real interesting twists or surprises. In fact
- the one "twist" that I thought was going to happen (involving the one
succubi's "offspring") never came, and was never explained or resolved
at all. I'd say this is an extremely mediocre rental at best for a
"popcorn"-style horror film, but would honestly suggest not even
bothering - those expecting a well-made Barker film will be severely
disappointed...5/10

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:

Goofy fun.

If you like Clive Barker film adaptations you will probably like this.
This
is a good and bad thing of course as Barker films tend to be uneven. On
the
plus side is decent acting and some genuinely spooky scenes especially in
the first half. The two sucubi are especially interesting at first with
quirky mannerisms and they do give an impression of supernatural beings in
human form. The effects are generally good but do get a little cheesy in
parts (the latex look). The protagonists also tend to become less
interesting as the film goes on.
Thats the main problem I have with this movie in that it just goes on too
long. I really enjoyed the first hour but steadily lost interest as the
story ran out of ideas and became pretty predictable. All in all though it
was enjoyable enough and does show more imagination than a lot of what
passes for horror these days. If you liked this I would recommend
"Hellraiser" also by Clive and "The Prophecy" with Christopher
Walken.

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7 out of 13 people found the following review useful:

One of the best horror movies I've seen

I was shocked to see that this got so low a rating. I really liked this
movie. The story is so good, and brings to mind the best work of Clive
Barker. I thought this movie has some purposeless violence. However,
that does not change the fact that a wonderful story is being told in a
way which is far beyond most main-stream horror. 10/10.

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7 out of 13 people found the following review useful:

Clive Barker does it again

Somebody tell me why EVERY horror movie isn't about demons that have sex
with their victims? You can't go wrong with that.

Clive barker touched upon some "old horror movie" themes and styles during
the beginning of the movie -- William Davis from the X-files (the
cigarette-smoking man) plays a part in this. Once the main character
travels through time to current day, the movie itself changes into "year
2002 horror movie" mode. Both were done very well.

The movie has a lot of character to it. They went through a lot of effort
on this movie.

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6 out of 12 people found the following review useful:

Not Bad

SAINT SINNER had the potential to be really good, but the final product is
only average. There are some good scenes in here, but the screenplay also
shows inability to prove it has a brain every now and then. There's enough
of the "erotic gore" that Clive Barker is known for to make this "a Clive
Barker movie". The film certainly has an intriguing pedigree, and perhaps
even a nice premise, but the end result is just not that
great.

Was Very Decent For A Clive Barker made for cable movie

Was a decently made made-for-cable- movie especially concering the
subject
matter as a true succubi demon drains a man to death sexually and in this
film you see your succubi sucking on a tube from the back of a mans
neck/head rather than his privates. Also,I thought that succubi were
supposed to be very beautiful women and both of the actresses hired for
this
film definatley leave a lot to be desired in the looks department though
both women do pull off the characters of the succubi as extremely
creepy.You
as a man would not want to nail these two but since most of a sucubbis
victims are usually hypnotized as in folklore they appear to be beautiful
until the sex act begins and then they appear to the victim as the
withred,disgusting demonesses they truly are supposed to be. Actor Thomas
Alcala is a fine actor who deserves better movie roles in the future as
his
monk character makes this film very interesting. Low on the gore factor i
guess since on it's on TV which definatley will disappoint some Barker
fans,
as it did yours truly the movie was decent it just needed more gore and
if
it was allowed some nudity would ahve be acceptable to the roles of the 2
actresses playing the demonesses and also better looking women playing
the
roles of succubi is a must.

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2 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

Decent entry, if not overtly spectacular

Uncovering a strange amulet, Tomas Alcala, (Greg Serano) learns from
Father Michael, (William B. Davis) that the amulet was supposed to keep
Munkar, (Mary Mara) and Nakir, (Rebecca Harrell) sister succubi from
exiting their dimensional trap. Released into our world, he is sent out
to stop them from unleashing their fury and destruction on mankind.
Reluctantly accepting, the job, he sets out to the city to find that
they have been on a giant rampage leaving bodies everywhere they go
that eventually catches up to him. When Det. Rachel Dressler, (Gina
Ravera) is assigned to the case, it takes them awhile to believe that
the actions he's saying are happening until an unexplainable encounter
forces her to consider the story. Finally on the same side, they decide
to track them down before more fall to their fury.

The Good News: This here wasn't that bad and had some halfway decent
moments in it. The main part of this one is that there's a whole lot of
great special effects work in the film. This is due to the manner in
which the deaths are accomplished, sucking out the life-force
physically from the subject. To accomplish this, a small tube is dug
into the back of the neck from which it's sucked out, while the victim
is also seen to be completely covered in a strange goo from everywhere
on the body, and these are greatly realized with some rather brutal
scenes showing the fluid being drained through these devices. The
manner of killing, by slicing open the neck to apply the tube also
means that there's a large amount of blood to be seen, and a couple of
non-fatal encounters also produce a fair amount of bloodshed to the
mix. The film also has a rather incredibly disgusting birthing sequence
where a pregnant stomach is seen with some form of creature scratching
and clawing from behind it, with a large tentacle erupting forth and
soon after a hideous millipede-like creature is seen to be coming out,
later to turn on the mother in a fantastic scene. Mixed along side this
with some nice brawling, a couple of decent action-packed encounters
and a fun, exciting finale that has a large amount of life and
entertainment, this one here has some really good points to it.

The Bad News: This one here wasn't terrible, but there was a few flaws
to it. One of the big ones is that there's very little in here that go
explained. The whole story starts with his letting them go, and in a
sign of God, chosen to stop them, which really doesn't make sense as a
colossal mistake of that kind doesn't really earn the kind of reward
given to it. There's also the series about how the creatures haven't
had trouble adapting to the new generation in the present time. It
certainly should've come up, how that makes for fun times is missing as
here, there's no scenes involving either of the time travelers having
any trouble adapting to the changes between the times when they're
really should've been. The film also fails to mention how the source of
the demons power is achieved through their killing method. It's shown
to be a form of hose coming out of the back of the neck, but whether or
not it's a device planted on the back from the creatures or just the
spinal cord ripped out. That others would find the deathly pale glow of
their skin as attractive is yet another one, and these here are some of
the minutiae flaws found. The film also has areas that aren't all
there, especially the slow later half where the cops take over and the
back-story is given. This is slow, meandering and doesn't really have a
lot to offer in terms of entertainment, and combined with the other
flaws, are what's really wrong with the film.

The Final Verdict: With a few good and bad moments, this one here
manages to stay watchable through the bad even though it is flawed.
Give this one a chance if you're into the creative side of the film or
find the topic or the film in general interesting, otherwise there
isn't enough for others to get into it.